


ἀποκάλυψις

by PomoneCorse



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Canon character deaths, Ennemies to It's Complicated, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, Pretentious Chapter Titles, Resist Ending, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-05-28 11:15:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15047636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PomoneCorse/pseuds/PomoneCorse
Summary: Apokalupsis: Revelation.A huis clos with your worst enemy.She wished she could have sprung into action the moment his back was turned. She would have picked her cuffs. She would have run out, nonsensical explosion in slow-motion at her back, only to find the nukes hadn’t really fallen.But that was all fool's hope.





	1. ἅγιος, ἅγιος, ἅγιος

**Author's Note:**

> Hagios: holy.
> 
> To note: this isn't really a shippy fic. I've always loved the Locked in a Room trope, and wondered how my not quite a law enforcement officer would handle it. Enjoy, and please feel free to critique :)

_“You are all I have left now. You are my family. And when the world is ready to be born anew, we will step into the light. I am your Father, and you are my child...”_

 

Dahlia had no idea how long they both sat, waiting, in that dark little room. With every distant explosion, every sound and sensation of the earth shaking, the pit in her stomach sunk a little lower. Dutch’s bedroom, like the rest of his bunker, was grey and dismal, trophies of war the only decorations the old man had allowed himself. But he wouldn’t ever change it now, would he? His rapidly cooling body witness to that end. And yet there were more urgent problems: a monster, not five feet away.

Joseph Seed was quiet. Dahlia had no idea how long this would last: he seemed too fond of his own voice to ever willingly restrain it. This silence worried her as much as the- the corpse. The body on the other end of the room. She hadn’t yet managed to look at _it,_ at him, at _Dutch_. To think.

Joseph shifted, leaning forward. Studying her form, down on the ground, hands holding to his lips a, somehow, still intact rosary. Like everything was right; like this entire botched affair had been ordained. Predestined. Letters of fire on the wall. She couldn't tear her eyes away. Her captor, Dutch’s murderer, the whole damned reason she was cuffed to a _fucking_ bed, filled with rage, with pain, with confusion. The reason why she wasn’t burning up of radiation and fire in a crashed car. Why her? Why _him_? Why not Staci, who was - had been, she reminded herself, her heart breaking- so good, so strong, deserving to live; why not Joey, so righteous, so driven, fierce and tough? This was wrong. This was unfair.

Something must have shown. Joseph stood up, terrible in the shadows.

“I will leave you to think,” he gave for sole explanation. She heard, rather than saw, the drag of Dutch’s body through the door. _Goodbye_ , she thought. _Sorry_.

She did not weep.

* * *

 

She wished she could have sprung into action the moment his back was turned. She would have picked her cuffs. She would have run out, nonsensical explosion in slow-motion at her back, only to find the nukes hadn’t really fallen. The so-called End had never come. Her friends would all be safe, ready to pop out from the bushes with banners and confetti. Sharky would make his off-color jokes, Boomer would affectionately lick her (lone, single) tear away. And maybe she’d stop putting off her appointments with her therapist back in Sacramento.

But that was all wishful thinking. Her anger had come and gone. The adrenaline from the car ride had vanished with the nuclear winds. Instead she had slept a little, only to wake curled in on herself, lost. Her limbs had long waved goodbye to pins and needles, and her bladder was competing with her parched throat for attention. She concentrated on those simple sensations, painful but clear lanterns in her emotional turmoil.

It really was unfair- she held onto this, a guiding thought in the dark. What could she do? Assess the situation. One, that arrest had gone south “all the way to Texas”, in Adelaide’s words. Two, there had been at least three detonations. Outside the mountain range, _bendito sea Dios_ ; they had had time to reach shelter. Three, she must live.

The realization was electric. Yet useless- she was still cuffed, still had to wait for the fallout to subside. How long would that be, days? Weeks? Could she survive, mind intact, stuck underground?

The smell of food jerked her out of her misery. Her stomach growled mournfully. Was that rice? Slightly burnt, judging from the smell, but still edible rice?

She did not have to wonder long. Joseph entered the room, bowls and a water bottle carefully balanced. Still hadn't found a shirt.

“Since we will be family, we should eat together,” he stated, putting the bowl near her hands. Great fucking idea, she thought. Make her eat through the bars.

“What, you also wanna join hands and give thanks? Oops,” she hissed at him, shaking her cuffed hands on the metal bars. “Looks like you'll have to do that alone.”

Joseph pressed his lips together. Man, they had really gotten him. His face was horribly bruised, eyes haggard and lost.

“You mock me,” he mused, face barely moving. “I only acted out of love, out of care. You know that my only motive is-"

“- Is to make me fit into your fucked up family. You got a really weird definition of that, pal.”

Joseph blinked owlishly. His gaze swept over her, squinting in the low light. She should have felt scrutinized, but only felt vindicated.

“As I said, the only motive I hold is concern for you and your soul. Are you so lost in wrath and pain that you cannot even begin to imagine the lengths I would go to for my family? Oh, but my heart weeps for yours.”

“I'm nowhere near as blind as you pretend to be. You hate my guts. You hide behind your pretty words, Joseph, you play the visionary, but we both know the truth.”

The man dropped down to her level, empty hand reaching out. Oh, but she would have given her left arm to be in a position to kick his legs out from under him.

“Touch me,” she hissed, “and I will bite that hand off.”

“It’s normal for you to be lost and confused,” he sermonized as his hand withdrew. “Your world has been turned inside out, its flaws levelled by righteous revelation. But we both know I’m right. You know that this hate within you is a symptom, the last heartbeats of a dying, wretched Babylon. Trust in me, let me reach you!”

His voice was steady, lulling. Dahlia couldn't help but pay attention to the rhythm of it.

“I cannot force you to listen, but I will do what I can, what a shepherd must. Help me help you,” he said, ending so low that she had to strain to hear it, even in the quiet of the room.

She felt something burning building up, hot red waves crashing and rushing, breaking in her ears. Rage. Blood red rage. Oh, but she could kick him in his exposed stomach, in the face, lean forward and smash his nose in, bare her teeth to tear into his throat, bathe herself in crimson.

But no- no. She wouldn't. She was still twisted in a very uncomfortable position. That, and she didn't actually want-

“Now, listen here,” she heard herself say before she could think. _Hijole_ , she sounded like her cousin talking to toddlers. “You're gonna listen to me, Joseph. You despise me, you do! For some reason, you dragged my ass out of a crashed car, you murdered the one guy who's been friendly to me since the goddamn beginning, you cuffed me to a bed, and now you want me to, what, forget all that?”

She leaned forward, trying to crowd him. Make him lose his ground.

“You want me to forget all the batshit stuff I’ve had to live through for the past two months? You're even more fucked up than I thought.”

“You believe I wanted this?” answered Joseph, disbelief clear in his voice, not moving an inch. “You think this was planned by my hand?”

His tone had been even so far, as loud as her own, but he had started shaking. Kneeling not two feet from her, the calm assurance he exuded had become tense, dangerous anger.

“I did _everything_ that was asked of me! I loved! I guided and I built! I led my family through our desert, preparing them, molding them from the dry spiritual well they were in. We were waiting for this! And you _killed_ them, one by one.”

Dahlia blinked.

“Now you call me _monster_?” he asked, eyes wild.

She stared him down before answering, hazel narrowed at blue. Ha, he’d lost his stupid yellow glasses. No, she really wasn't afraid.

“I do. And worse.”

Joseph stood up, the sudden movement knocking her bowl off the bed. He faced the wall, shoulders shaking. Yet when he spoke again, his voice rang clear.

“I am saddened you refuse to place your trust in me, child. So blinded by your hate, the emptiness the old world has left inside of you. Don't you find it exhausting?” he faced her again. “Don't you wish you had some measure of peace?”

“You've got me handcuffed to a bed,” she pointed out. “Even without thinking about the clusterfuck of the past two decades, that would not make me want to trust you.”

Joseph leaned on the wall like a crutch, fingers clutching at his rosary. Dahlia raised her chin, defiant.

“Trust is not a river, it does not flow one way. I will show you trust, Deputy, I will forgive you, if you will just acknowledge your mistakes. If you would just offer your sins to me.” He stared her down. “Don't you wish to unburden yourself?”

She couldn't resist.

“I kinda need to go to the bathroom, actually.”

“Twice, you mock me,” he breathed. “Deputy, if you think-"

“Special Reporter Hargen, actually. You've been getting it wrong for a while now. And no, I really do need to go.”

“ _Reporter_?”

“Yeah, see that little band here? I've got my press pass in there,” she twisted her neck to pull it out of her shirt pocket with her teeth. “Lookth like you methed up, _Father_.”

She tried to spit it out onto the bed, only for it to hit the bars and fall miserably to the ground.

Joseph picked up the little grey plastic card, not bothering to wipe it.

“So confident,” he muttered, holding it before his face. “So proud, _too_ proud. Follow me.”

He bent forward to uncuff her at last, making no move to help when she painfully rose to her feet- _good_ , she thought, would have had to follow through on the “biting his hand off” thing. Her legs were stiff as a board, and about as manageable as one. She stumbled shakily as he walked out the door, leaving behind upended bowls of rice, following a fine trail of blood.

The rest of the bunker was as badly lit as Dutch’s room. That hadn't changed. She remembered looking for light switches all those weeks ago, fingers seeking out in the dark; now every door was shut.

All, except the kitchen. A good thing too, since she had vague memories of the bathroom being in there. Unwilling to wait, she ducked into the room, leaning on the appliances as feeling came back to her limbs.

“Be there in a minute,” she announced, looking around. The room looked like it had in early September, if not for the half-opened bag of rice, the dirty utensils and dirtied out pan in the sink. The thought of so monstrous a man doing something as mundane as burning his food was too much to contemplate, and she hurried on to the bathroom.

* * *

When she walked out, she felt a little better. Still thirsty, but that could wait. Joseph was standing directly under the light, holding her pass very close to his face. She had no idea what he was searching for- after all, only her name and picture were on there.

“Looking for something?”

Joseph lowered his hands, glaring in her general direction. The tension turned back on, like someone had flipped a switch.

“The Marshall must have been quite confident to bring the press that night.”

“Must have. Wasn't like I was there for interviews,” she shrugged.

“Then what were you there for?”

She kept quiet.

“You had something to show me.”

“I did, didn’t I?” He turned around and walked out, seemingly sure she would follow.

She did. For now.

They made their way through the hall, pipes and bits of wires laying about. Dahlia wished dearly Dutch had kept his manuals. In their states, they could last two or so weeks without food, but too short a time without water. That wasn't even taking into account the air filtration system. So lost in her thoughts, she nearly tripped over the steps leading to the decontamination room. Joseph almost steered her by the shoulder to face a dark shape slumped near the door.

“You seek the truth, don’t you? You investigate, you bring to light,” he gestured. “So, tell me. What would you make of this?”

Dahlia took one cautious step, sick realization in the pit of her stomach.

“Couldn’t even respect the dead, could you?” she seethed. One wrinkled hand lay palm upward. She kneeled to close it, careful not to look into Dutch’s open eyes.

“This is your fault,” Joseph said, every word weighted like stones. “Why the Collapse came, as you broke every Seal. Why all those who fought beside you were lost. Why, for example, Nick Rye never made it back to his wife and child.”

She kept her eyes on Dutch’s body, his gaze cloudy and wide. At peace, she hoped. She wasn’t sure she believed in any kind of afterlife, but it would be nice if he found his family there. If he could forgive her.

“No, it isn’t,” she replied levelly. She had spent so long trying to help, weary weeks in the dark. Neck-deep in dirt, in fire, in blood. She had done good, she was _sure_ of it.

“They would have lived,” he continued, stepping closer. As if they both stood at his pulpit, within his compound. He, the wise and benevolent cult leader. She, one of his sectarians, looking for guidance. “If you had not destroyed the bunkers that would have let them in. If your misguided rebellion had not butchered my chosen, my children. If you hadn’t murdered my brothers and sister.”

Dahlia stood up, nails digging into her palms.

“Admit it, Hargen. Renounce your sins,” he pleaded, voice deceptively soft.

She turned around, unwilling to look at the result of her mistakes any longer. In the light, his tattoos and brands looked baleful.

“I already told you that you were not beyond salvation. You still aren’t, despite all that you have done. My forgiveness will purify you, will set you free. Trust in me, and your soul will be redeemed, will be made righteous.”

Her nails pierced her skin. She hissed at the pain, flexing and unflexing her fingers almost immediately.

“What about Dutch? Was he not worthy of that compassion?”

“Mister Roosevelt would not listen,” he gave as his sole answer. “But I see that won’t convince you. Perhaps I should leave you to think.”

Wordlessly, she watched him retreat deeper into the bunker.

* * *

The place really wasn’t the best place to be if you wanted to hide. Dahlia still gave it a shot. Grabbing one of the water bottles from the kitchen, she tucked herself into the couch, watching the fish. _Cabrones afortunados_. They didn’t care that the world had ended. Ah, maybe that was why Dutch had kept them: he saw himself in them, safe and stuck in their tank.

Her wrists still hurt, the skin red from the cuffs. She rubbed at it, willing the rash to go away. A couple days of pain left, she thought. Could she pilfer some painkillers from Dutch’s stash? Would it be worth it? She ripped a page from the end of one of the fashion magazines, intent on jotting down a list of what needed doing. But the fish made for pretty shapes, with the light coming off their tank. She let herself look at them, casting their shadows on the walls.

 

The noise of Joseph rooting around the sink woke her up. His face was puffed up like he’d been crying, black and blue bruises turning into telltale red splotches. He was muttering to himself as he scrubbed the dried, burned out rice from the pot; Dahlia found the whole of it quite ridiculous, but waited quietly for him to finish before talking.

“Did you get it all out?”

He swung around, blinking, brandishing the sponge before him like a weapon.

“It would be slothful not to,” he acquiesced when he relaxed.

“Cool. Come on,” she said, swallowing her anger for now. She waved for him to sit. “There’s a lot we need to talk about.”

Reluctantly, he laid out the pot to dry and dropped the sponge back in the sink. He carefully picked the chair opposite hers.

“Do you have any experience with air filtration systems, or water recycling? ”

“If I must learn, I will,” he answered, stoic.

“So you don't. Great,” she sighed. “What were you even gonna do in your bunkers, hope and pray? Have you found the maintenance manuals? Or at least the key to the map room?”

“The Lord is my shepherd,-”

“As my yaya would say, Dios la bendiga, you’re full of it. Ayúdate que el cielo te ayudará, and all that jazz. Your Voice isn't gonna go all incarnate and find missing screws for us.”

Joseph bristled.

“You made the choice to murder the one man who had this in hand. Now you gotta deal with the fallout.”

“Do not patronize me,” he said. “You mistake my confidence in Providence for naivety. I am not some child lost and confused, unable to care for my continued survival.”

“Neither am I,” she replied, massaging her temples. “Best you remember it.”

“The care of the soul must take precedence over all concerns.”

“And if we don’t figure out a way to survive before the ceiling caves in, that’ll come in handy real soon. I think we should make a list of what we need to check on.”

She slid the paper over to him.

“I see,” he said, barely glancing at it.

“Really?” she mused as she crossed her arms. “There’s nothing on it yet.”

He closed his palm over it, and the pen on the table.

“Thank you,” he said through gritted teeth.

“You’re-” _welcome_ , she was going to say. Untrue, untrue, untrue. He stared inquisitively, and she continued. “First off, I think we should do an inventory of food, water and medicine.”

“A sound idea,” he agreed, surprisingly calm, pen running over the paper in tight loops, eyes everywhere but on what he was doing. “Maybe we should ration those out?”

“Well, that all depends on how long we’re staying. Your path said seven years; I did hike up to your statue.”

“Did you now?” Oh, but he was way too calm.

“Yep, and no big revelation. No earth-shattering voice, or soft whispers on the wind. Think I was ripped off, like you did the Stations of the Cross.”

Joseph hummed.

“And you would object to that amount of time?”

“Yeah, of course I would. I remember reading shelter for nuclear attacks should be in weeks, not years.”

“Not months?”

“Nope, definitely not that long.”

“There shall be seven weeks; and for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with streets and moat,” he said, like it answered everything. It might have, in his mind.

“Sure, seven weeks might work, if rations allow,” she conceded. She’d have to try and figure out a way to entertain herself for close to two months. Feasible, if she could get into the locked rooms, and out of his way. “We really should find the keys to the place. I bet Dutch kept his manuals in… his office? Not sure what the place was to him. And, of course, get the body outside.”

Joseph’s gaze flit to hers. He leaned back, mute, into his seat, fingers tapping on the table.

“We can’t do anything about Dutch for a couple days, so. We’ll need to find a body bag, or make one.”

“I can take care of that,” was all he said as he got up, walking out quickly. She idly wondered what else was wrong. But, well: gift horse, and all that; other concerns.

She stayed at the table after he left, adding to her own list. There were other things she’d need. Painkillers being limited, she would need to stretch those out when mother nature invited herself in. It might be too much to hope Dutch had accurately planned for a menstruating companion when stocking up, even as he wished for his son and his family’s company- _si Dios quiere_ , she’d only deal with the mess once. Clothes-wise, she had no problem putting on some of the man’s old stuff. Her own might be threadbare after seven weeks of constant wear, but she’d make do. Might get lucky and not everything above had burned away. There must be others who had lived, people who had reached their prepper’s shelter. The opposite was too difficult to think about.

She stood up at last. Trying to put thoughts of misery out of mind, she finally ate. Picking an apple from the crate, she carefully cut it open. It was one of the last out from Sunrise farms. She held onto the seeds a moment, small and precious in her hand, before throwing them away.


	2. ἔρχομ καὶ ἴδε

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Come and See"
> 
> How far he had fallen—once leader of a vast flock, modern day prophet, chosen harbinger, glimmers of paradise falling from his lips, cradling the lost and weary; now looking for plastic bags to shove a body in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would just like to thank [my beta galsinspace](http://galsinspace.tumblr.com/) for making sure this was at least somewhat internally consistent and readable, and being as excited to read this Cursed Fic as I am writing it

Listening to the reporter talk Joseph felt... empty. If he could not convince the woman that- what, exactly? Why had he saved the one that had been a thorn in his side those past weeks? No Voice had spoken, no divine blessing revealed by terrible pain. Of course he had been right, he had heard true on both accounts: the Collapse had come, seals broken by Hell and a Whitehorse. Eden's threshold reached. And the only witness to this glory was to be this… this busybody? This remorseless sinner, who had rejected his, the Father’s, love and forgiveness at every turn? Providence must have meant for this to happen. Hargen’s survival could not, should not have been a stroke of luck.

He was meant to march into the Garden with his family- so she must be his family. He would never be alone again; so she must see his truth, and through him, reach the peace so often denied by one’s lost self.

But she refused to listen. He offered his time and attention, and she threw bricks at his compassion, his  _ love _ .

Maybe this was not right, a sly voice whispered in his ear. Maybe he had picked the wrong person. Maybe he had been too proud, too confident in his ability to save anyone. To bring anyone into Eden with him. After all, hadn't he failed miserably? He had been right, but his children had all perished. He had been chosen, but he had been struck down, again and again.

“-and, of course, get the body outside.”

He looked back at her. Without the yellow shield of his glasses, his eyes felt as tired as his mind. Leaning back into his seat, he considered what paths were open to him.

“We can’t do anything about Dutch for a couple days, so. We’ll need to find a body bag, or make one.”

“I can take care of that,” he said. Having  Hargen  face the consequences of her rebellion would have been useful, but he was afraid, he realized, as he left her sitting alone with her list. The first hours after the first thunders of the Collapse had been exuberant, vindicated joy. Now it had given way to silence, waiting for the Voice to give him another purpose. All his life had led up to this, to the End; he had no guide for the wait before stepping into Eden. God’s Wrath scouring the Earth clean; angels tearing out the weed, the offenses, in preparation for the garden. What would the world be like, outside? What would the wait be like in the dark?

How far he had fallen—once leader of a vast flock, modern day prophet, chosen harbinger,  glimmers of paradise falling from his lips, cradling the lost and weary; now looking for plastic bags to shove a body in.

 

He made his way to the end of the bunker, leaning on the wall around the bend to avoid tripping on the garbage left lying around—too dark and small for him to see without his glasses. Experimentally, he tried to open the doors along the hallway—the surveillance room, and a freezing storage room right next to it were open. The latter would be cold enough to hold a dead body. They would have to empty out one of the shelves, and with Roosevelt’s body shape, it might be a tight fit, but it would work.

The armory was locked, but the key had to be somewhere. The infirmary itself, at the very end of the hallway, was unlocked.

The room was well-stocked; inventory would have to be made. It would never serve as a morgue, no cooled freezer to stick a body into, but it did have hazardous waste plastic bag s he almost missed with his eyes as fatigued as they were. A makeshift shroud for a man  so determined to be ready for anything felt appropriate, Joseph mused as he made his way back to the entrance.

Kneeling to examine Roosevelt, he found his body had already started to stiffen, rigor mortis settling in. The skin touching the floor had turned red like a full-body bruise.  His blood had been dragged by gravity down to the side closest to the ground. Joseph could spare a minute to pray for the old man’s soul — at least he would have company. 

 

As he heaved the body to search it, something heavy clinked to the ground. Joseph immediately spread his hands out on the concrete. He was so exhausted by the day’s events his eyes missed the metal glint of the keychain until his hand hit across the floor. He scrambled to grab at it.

This was power, he realized. He could lock every door; control which room Hargen had access to. But- fruitless. Shut and sealed bolts had not been obstacles enough before.

 

He missed Hargen standing at the door until she crouched down. More than an arm’s length away. Futile, if he really wanted to reach her.

“What’re you looking at?” she asked, breaking the silence. 

“ I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold,” he held the keychain up. “I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. ”

He pushed the filled shroud on its side to zip it shut. Careful not to touch anything, she stood back up.

“Well, look at that,” she mused. “I guess Dutch won’t be needing it anymore.”

 

He could have carried Roosevelt by himself, but Hargen insisted she help shoulder the corpse. It must have been a helpful reminder of the guilt she should carry. And yet, she refused to react when he insisted on saying a few words before they left the body alone in the freezing storage room.

Temporary obit done, Joseph decided to explore the rest of the bunker. Dahlia was unlocking the rest of the locked rooms, quickly making the rounds. Roosevelt had kept his armory in working order, his papers and maps tidy. But the worst were the maps — with the pictures of his siblings. He’d caught sight of them earlier through the door, had maybe spent too long staring at their faces.

He did so now too.

  
  


Hargen walked back in the kitchen in time to catch him struggling with the microwave. Wordlessly, she dropped the two cans in her hands on the table, to turn around and dig into one of the drawers for an opener. 

Dinner was ready, he supposed.

 

They ate in silence, the hum of the fish tank too loud in the oppressive, tense air.

“Why did you drag me out after, well, everything?” Hargen asked at last, half-heartedly picking at her share of canned peaches.

He chewed deliberately, thinking of how best to answer. A loaded question, but this might allow him to reach her.

“We each carry our own burdens, Hargen. Did you think I asked for my Visions? Saving you might have been another task for me; another offered hand for you. None but God knows the exact reason of why you were spared.”

Hargen considered him. Just a table length’s away, he could make out the deep lines on her face, the crow’s feet at her eyes and the sharp angle of her brow. But what stood out were her eyes, dark and worried. They glinted like knives in the shadows.

“I know why,” she said at last. “It's because you’re terrified, Joseph. You can't bear being alone even into your Eden. You're so-” she waved her spoon around, silver circles catching the light. Joseph felt the anger again, coiling in his gut, burning and all-consuming.  _ How dare she. How dare she pretend to know me, to understand- _

“You're so afraid of this great emptiness inside, you mask it up as love.”

He leaned forward in his seat, pushing down his wrath as far down as he could, grasping for self-control. As if he were wearing blinders, his vision narrowed down to her disdainful expression.

“How proud you are,” he said. “How conceited, to think I have need of you. Your understanding is  _ nothing _ if not a mirror of your faults. Let’s talk about that, then. Am I not your reflection? Are you not paralyzed with the loss you carry? Everything you fought for was for nothing. Your friends and allies are all-  _ gone _ .”

Hargen was on the edge of her seat. Her back, her neck were stiff as a board. 

“And your entire project turned to rubble by our hands,” she spat like acid. “Congratulations, Joseph Seed. Your Eden is ash and bones.”

Her words hit him like a punch. For a moment his fury surged up, tidal wave come rushing to ravage all that was left, before he breathed. The swell of anger was kept in check.

“From ash were we born, and so will our future. As long as I breathe, as long as  _ we _ both breathe, I have not failed. I was right, you saw it.” 

She looked like she had swallowed a lemon. Her lips pressed into a thin line, jaw square and set. Angry, yes, but now she was finally, blessedly, listening. Her hands were clutching at the edge of the table, and Joseph felt like he had made a breakthrough.

“We will walk together into Eden; it awaits us. Why do you persist in what will only bring you pain? You know this fight is fruitless. On your path lies only the death of the soul.”

“I don’t- what about you? What kinda kick do you get out of trying to convert me?”

He felt himself grimace. She forged on, relentless like she had been not so long ago.

“Oh, I get it. It’s because you’re lonely. All alone in your head, and all your sycophants dead.”

He stood up, chair crashing far, far away. Why wouldn’t she listen? Why did she refuse his open-handed gift of forgiveness like this?

“Well, guess what?” she pressed on, shaking with her own rage. “You can keep looking for company. I’m not going to try and make a go of it.”   
She walked out, leaving him alone with his resentment for sole company.

 

A half-week went by without them speaking. He tried several times to corner her, to force her to listen — she would leave him to preach to the walls, walking away when the words flowed out, locking herself in Roosevelt’s room, letting herself out even though he still had the keys. But Joseph was patient, and now he had all the time he would ever need.

He spent his mornings, evenings, nights in prayer, trying to reach the Voice for a new guide, a new counsel again. His attempts had only served to remind him of the silence. He had tried pleading, begging on his knees, self-flagellation. Hargen had seen the marks when she’d passed him in the hallway, reproach, pity,  _ hate _ in her gaze. He had tried to bargain, offering up his sins, his sacrifices, again and again. Day and night standing; denying sleep, rosary sliding between his fingers, desperate to reach communion. Once, when panic had consumed his whole being, he had let slip the leash on his anger and raged for hours, voice hoarse the rest of the week. He had eaten alone for days afterward, Hargen a ghost through the bunker.   
Now he paced the length of his room, his cage. He knew she was up. The radio droned on its emergency service message through the wall, a morning ritual she had started as soon as she had declared Roosevelt's old room for her own. 

He fished out the press pass she’d spat at him days ago from deep within his pocket. Joseph thumbed the little plastic card, nail playing with the ridge. The light in what had become his room was sufficient for his deficient vision, and by holding it close to his eyes he had been able to read the tiny letters. He stared at the words, first. Hargen, in capitals. Dahlia I., beneath. That was a flower, he idly thought. How odd, with her so wilful, headstrong. He would have named her for a weed. Something thorny and rough. 

The name of the paper she had worked for was pierced by a bullet hole, slight burns further obscuring the pass. Why would she have kept the thing? Hargen had never given any evidence of nostalgia in the weeks wreaking havoc in the county. What needs would this damaged thing fill? What practical end would this have?

He moved the card in the light, the ink’s darkened shapes blurred. He considered her picture. She didn't smile, but she seemed so different. Not entirely peaceful, but relaxed. Not entirely carefree, but at ease. Her raven hair framed her face, eyes alert and staring at the camera.

What it would take for her to be comfortable in his presence, to let her listen to what he must say? To convince Hargen — Dahlia? both were her name, but using the latter felt like tearing open the temple curtain to the  _ sanctum sanctorum _ _ — _ would be easier if she let her walls down. He must find out a way to make her trust him. To make her see the truth willingly.

He considered his options. Before, outside this pocket space, he would have gone right for forcible conversion; beautiful in its simplicity. It was a tool, to be used. It had saved — would have saved, before they were butchered by blind, wayward souls — so many of his flock. The Bliss would have been an useful mean to his end, perfect to sculpt her mind to the gospel of his hands, to mold Hargen — no, Dahlia, he  _ must _ use her name — into the receptive crucible that would receive the credo of his words. The Henbane River had been his Jordan, should have been hers as well.

If she had been there before the breaking of the first seal, if she had been caught in the helicopter crash, which of his siblings would he have sent her to, if the Collapse had hung over their head like Damocles’ sword for just one more month? John would have torn the truth from her lips, rent the spirit from the flesh, his blades would have carved the evil out of her heart; she would have been baptized, emerged reborn. Jacob would have made short work of that damned pride, broken and rebuilt her to listen to him, to the Father and his Heralds.  She would comprehend the authority the Voice had lent him. And Faith would have shown her the Bliss, before the Resistance and its ilk had poisoned her mind against the Project. His sister would have opened her eyes, allowed her to drop the shackles of a world hurtling to its burning end. Dahlia would have found her own conviction.

But he had none of them — nothing but grey walls and upright resolve. His siblings lay dead, his family twice lost forever to him. Recurring conditioning, repeated baptism in a two-by-two shower would be too straining to exhort her to revelation.

His word would suffice.

He would make her see.

 

He checked Roosevelt’s room first. The radio and lights were off, dirty clothes in a pile by the door. Dahlia hadn't changed much to the decor, except tearing down the flag he had put up that first day, and thrown it in the dirty pile. Another rejection of the truth. He considered pinning it back up on the wall, or somewhere she would be forced to look at it, unable to reach; but this could wait.

Joseph barely glanced at the infirmary, or the locked freezer where Roosevelt's body still lay in its plastic shroud. Rounding up the bend, he saw blue light streaming out of the kitchen’s open door like water.  Steeling himself, he marched in. He had started memorizing where the furniture was — his eyesight less troubling than it had once been.

 

He came to stand behind the chair, hands clasping the worn leather. The fish’s blurred shadows turned the room into something out of a nightmare. Out of his dreams of the darkness waiting in an unfinished world, ready to creep in when they would open the door, into this claustrophobic pocket. He forced himself to breathe, the borrowed cotton shirt an itch on his skin.

“You judge me. You judged my flock as you cut them down; you found us wanting. But did you not fear, with every passing day? Were you not terrified with every new nightmare crossed your desk, every death, every depravity you must have seen?”

Dahlia did not react to his questions, wetting her thumb to turn the page of her book.

“Why do you refuse to listen? Why are you so unconcerned with the fate of your soul?”

He paced the room, unwilling to look any longer.

“You must recognize the gravity, the depravity of your acts. I know you have been merciful, generous at times. You have those seeds of righteousness in you, Hargen. Why do you root them out?”

He heard the book snap shut.

“How long have we been here already, Joseph?” her voice a mumble, barely louder than the fishtank. “How long have you been waiting for your Voice? Nothing is coming.”

At last; she spoke. Always dismissive, always disdainful, but a reaction. The first words out of her in almost a week, bitter water.

“But you- how long will you deny reality? The validity of my word?” He moved to perch on the chair, peering at the hazy shadows of the cracks running through the leather. “You cannot keep hiding and pray for things to turn out fine. Does your refusal stem from fear? Hargen, I know the despair deep within you. I lived through the uncertainty eating away at you; I too have been lost. The light can be a frightening thing when it shines through the shadows.”

He finally glanced her way. She was tucked into the couch, something brittle in the way she held herself. Her arms were crossed across her chest, holding the thick book close. He strained to catch her expression from his seat three feet away: closed off, brows furrowed in worry.

Dahlia opened her mouth to answer him when the lights flickered out, plunging them in the dark. 

“ _ Joder _ !” he heard her swear. “I hope that wasn’t one of the fucking generators.”


	3. και δεν μετανοήθηκαν

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There had probably been a right way to handle this mess that she’d missed - killing the monster like some hero - but the truth was that Dahlia was tired. Tired of the constant, deeply-rooted and, she knew, justified anger in her bones, of the hate simmering beneath her skin threatening to boil over with every breath. Afraid of being left alone until it was safe enough to walk out of the bunker.
> 
> Two weeks was a long time alone with echoes. Months or years wouldn’t be any better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And they did not repent.

If there was one constant in her life, it was this: Dahlia made lists. Her office space back in Sacramento had been covered in post-its, wallpaper disappearing under yellowed notes; her borrowed beds throughout September and October across the county had all birthed late night plans and thoughts on notepads she’d promptly lost. 

Three weeks in the bunker hadn't changed that. She scrawled things on cartons, and paper, and her own skin. Meal plans, inventory, thoughts she would like to say to people she would never see again.

Apologies. Goodbyes. Confessions.

 

She hadn’t looked at the generators before they broke. The air filter manuals had been somewhat difficult to get through. Cataloguing the amount of food and other necessities had taken most of her time, even taking her routine into account. She thought Joseph had  started on the inventory during one of his more lucid moments, but when she’d peeked at the scrawled letters they’d seemed hieroglyphic; an ugly, undecipherable tangle hinting at some hidden truth her eyes were never meant to perceive.

So, well, she’d had to do it too. 

That wasn't to say he did nothing: one of them had to cook; to find out how the laundry worked, the dishes, the cleaning. Chores they both took care of.

And there was no fucking way she was gonna clean up after an adult man.

 

Standing cramped for several hours over the broken generators with only a flashlight and elbow grease marked a shift. Joseph still tried to talk at her instead of with her, intent on making her admit… well, she wasn't sure what exactly, but maybe endless  _ mea culpas _ on her part and reaffirmation of his belief. Dahlia still ignored him when he went off on tangents.

But her skin crawled less and less when they were in the same room; accusations of guilt less often thrown at her face. Just two days ago, she’d started dozing off in the living room, at ease in the old couch facing the fish tank; uncaring that Joseph was in the room.

There had probably been a right way to handle this mess that she’d missed - killing the monster like some hero as soon as he’d let her out of the cuffs, or in his sleep, or anytime since, coming at him with the shovel left in the maintenance hallway - but the truth was that Dahlia was tired. Tired of the constant, deeply-rooted and, she knew, justified anger in her bones, of the hate simmering beneath her skin threatening to boil over with every breath. Afraid of being left alone until it was safe enough to walk out of the bunker.

Two weeks was a long time alone with echoes. Months or years wouldn’t be any better.

 

But what other choice did she have for human company? The radio was seemingly stuck on a loop of emergency public announcement, and no one had tried to make contact on the HAM radio. She didn’t have the option to turn on her handheld radio and ask Adelaide for her dirtiest joke; share the burden of leadership with Jerome; listen to Nick’s worries on fatherhood.

So Dahlia tried, very, very, very hard. She went to sleep clutching her yaya’s medal, thumb running over the grooves making out the Lady of Guadalupe’s form. She woke up more often than not with the bedsheets around her limbs like so many ropes, hair in her mouth and dried tears at the corner of her eyes. Pretended not to hear the echoes of those she’d left behind, kept a careful eye on Joseph’s rantings.

It wouldn’t do for him to have another “vision” when she was stuck with no way out for a while.

 

“You had to have your own thoughts as to the Project, in any case. You couldn’t have embarked on that helicopter with no idea what awaited.”

Dahlia raised her eyes to meet Joseph’s, blue gaze as intense as ever. She swallowed down the bland beans that made up their lunch, trying to stall for time.

“I thought you believed what you preached, at least.”

Joseph looked ill. She lowered her gaze, eyes lost into her half can of beans.

“I had read what I could about your cult before accepting Whitehorse’s offer to come and be… an impartial observer. You weren't in it for money or for sex like that Raniere guy. Power, maybe.”

“That is one of your failings, Hargen-"

“Dahlia. We've been in here for almost two weeks, could you please use my name?”

“- you are so mired in earthly motives, you cannot comprehend divine will. You ascribed mortal sin to a godly mission.”

“I was coming at it from a quote-unquote secular perspective, of course I would. And by the way, anyone with a lick of sense would think that, what with how you all carved words in your flesh like cattle. Like, oh, your brother did to Nick, to Jerome, to half the population of Holland Valley. To me.”

It got very, very quiet. She could hear the hum of the fridge overlapping with the fish tank’s. All the light rushed out of the room.

“No, you did not get ‘carved up’. John may have been blinded by his own wrath, but even now you wear your sin plain as day. Your pride, every choice and word and act one more tumble into your fall. You are branded by it, soul seared by it. Though wrath might not have been the worst of your sins, it is still part of the sickness in your soul for which you must atone.”

“What for? You've already won, Joseph,” she scoffed, emotions gathering in her chest, eyes starting to sting.  _ Fuck _ , why was she getting all teary-eyed? “Look outside! The world has ended and we're both stuck waiting in the dark.”

“This was never about  _ winning _ ,” he snarled. “This was about living!”

Dahlia looked up from her meal. He took a few measured breaths, head in his hands. 

“I told you when you woke,” he answered, not as loudly but just as bitterly. “My family was to be by my side. At last they should have been- free.” 

His voice broke on the last word. He was… unravelling, might be a good term. She needed to defuse the situation, fast, before anything happened and he threw something very much like a tantrum.

“That was your goal, yes, but look at you now,” she waved in his general direction. “Despite it all, even you have to know you went wrong somewhere.”

He shuddered. Wow, wrong move. 

“I need to cool my head,” she sighed, irked with herself for even trying to be civil. “We obviously can’t talk to each other right now.”

Dahlia stood up, carefully pushing her chair back at the table. Her tea was cooling. She hadn't touched her food, but she didn't feel hungry. She’d reheat her sad half-can of beans later, and picked up the drink.

Joseph didn't visibly react.

She almost said something trite, like  _ see you later, then, _ or  _ buen provecho _ .

Instead Dahlia slipped out of the living area. The argument rattled around in her head for the remainder of the afternoon. She wasn't feeling sorry for him, never, but she worried. They still had a month or so to go before a possible first outing - if he ever let her walk out, her mind whispered treacherously, and wouldn’t that be something? To stay here forever to die in the dark.

 

When evening came- at least, what the clocks told her was evening- Dahlia found herself in Dutch’s war room. The changes they had made the day before were still there. Busy with the map, she almost didn't hear Joseph when he spoke at the door.

“You really can’t wait.”

“We only got a set amount of food. Might as well know where to forage before we run out.”

No answer. She hated the silence, hated how heavy it hung over the room like a shroud.

"Why don't you choose the song this time?" She asked, circling another prepper stash on the map. A peace offering.   
It must have worked, because she heard Joseph rooting around the old milkcrate.   
"It would have been helpful if Roosevelt had kept the names of the songs somewhere."   
"Sure, but then where's the fun in that? Just pick-"   
"Got it," Joseph announced, distantly.

The record player clicked somewhere behind her, and music filled the room soon after.  _ Good pick _ , she thought. Doo-wop, Ink Spots a welcome change after the rock that had been picked the day before. Something felt off, but she figured that was just being in close proximity to Joseph. That, or her hunger made her antsy.   
For a few minutes more she mapped possible routes, feet tapping to the rhythm. Joseph loomed against the wall to her left, commenting every so often to add a stash she had missed. How he knew about those, she hadn't a clue. He had been quiet all afternoon, had kept to himself. Dahlia preferred keeping an eye on him rather than his retreating in a corner: at least then his mood swings could be tracked, even avoided. Something about this situation bothered her; screaming at her to run away, hide, do anything.   
Then she heard it. The first bars of  _ that song _ .   
"No!" she shouted, scrambling to reach the record player- too late, too late. She froze.    
Her body swayed, vision tinted red- _ red _ - **_red_ ** . She tried to speak, but her throat closed up, limbs stuck on a never ending spasm. Waiting for a command, for someone to tell her what to do, to flip the switch inside her brain and get her to move.   
Gaze fixed on the mechanical arm, she heard the other bunker's occupant shuffle closer.   
_ Please _ , she thought.  _ Make it stop _ .   
Joseph was silent. Away from the wall, he had looked surprised for a moment, even through the demonic mien the red lighting gave him. Hellish. Staring. Watchful. Nothing like Jacob had been like in the Whitetails, involved just out of her field of vision, turn by turn praising and admonishing.   
"Hargen- Dahlia," he started, measured and careful with her name. Why was he using it now? "Tell me: did you ever doubt, ever think I could have been right?"   
And she tried to breathe, body still except for her face, her lungs, the shock a cold burn deep in her chest.

_ Is this some sorta payback _ ? she wanted, attempted to say. Or  _ you're a twisted jackass with sick power trips _ .

Instead what came out was: “I did.” Every vowel painfully ripped from her lips, lacerations on her mind. “When the nukes fell.”

With the last word she fell, red fading to black.

  
  


Peace.

 

She woke.

 

This was starting to be a bad habit. Not quite on the level of that summer down in Yellowstone, but at least this time she found herself on a couch, not a pile of leaves, someone else’s bra a novelty hat. She turned her head to look around the room- only to find Joseph sitting an arm’s length away, head in his hands. Must have been praying, if the soft whispers, barely audible, were any indication.

_ Shit _ .

She must have said that out loud, because he stopped to look at her.

"You understand- I wanted the truth, this was necessary-" he started, hand reaching out.   
"No," she shook, cold anger in her gut. "No, it wasn’t."   
"I never acted-"   
Dahlia caught his arm.   
"It doesn’t matter. You keep putting on this mask, this supposedly caring  _ padre _ , but all you do is twist people and pretend it’s out of... because you care."   
She raised herself up on her elbows, holding on to his outstretched forearm. Her nails dug into his skin. She felt raw. The conditioning had been like- no snapping out of it. Why hadn’t she launched into blood rage? Was that not how it worked?  It had been like being on- standby? And,  _ oh, of course _ . There had been no command, no training imperative to kill, kill,  _ kill _ . She’d been nothing but an empty shell, waiting for someone to switch her on and sic her lose.   
"You were responsible for all the horrors I saw. You took your brothers and all the poor girls that became Faith and instead of helping, you turned them into monsters-"   
"I did what I had to," he seethed. "The Collapse came, it came and burned down everything, you saw it, you believed in it as it scorched the earth. Did you not wake up every day with the specter of death looming over all you loved? Were you not terrified?"   
"Of course I- but twenty years ago? Was all this- this monstrosity necessary? Was this mess what your Voice had in mind?” Dahlia answered. “You only saved two people, and you hate them both!"

He recoiled, as if struck.  _ Good _ , she thought. Something sickly and twisted clinched around her heart, and she tightened her vice-like hold.

“You’re all alone, Joseph. That tears you up inside, doesn’t it? You keep messing things up, so you try to take control, like a child. You messed up Jacob and John and Rachel, and, fuck, you messed up people like Jerome too. You thought you could do that to  _ me _ . You think I’m gonna break and listen.”

“It was an accident,” he replied, features and body unmoving. And yet, slumped in his chair, arm stuck in her grasp, something in the way he held himself had changed. “I had no idea that song was there, you know the records are unmarked.”

“You just proved I can’t trust you. Why would I ever believe what you say?”

“I may not be flawless, but if you are calling me a-”

“Liar?” she finished, fuming. “You’re pretty insecure for a honest man. Jer- People said you were.”

Joseph scowled. He had been eerie enough in plain daylight; here he was horrifying.

“You still need help, Dahlia. My help, the truth’s help. How can that happen if you keep closing your mind,closing closing yourself off to what my Word offers? Only through baring your soul open will you heal; only through the truth will we start to mend our hurts.”

Briefly, Dahlia gaped, slack-jawed, her rage paralyzing, before pushing Joseph away at last. Anger burned in her throat. Anger and shame: something in his words worming its way under her skin; she was terrified of that very feeling. She wanted the comfort of his false peace, she realized. The comfort of being free from choice, of responsibility. 

So she did what she did best: she ran away.

Though her legs were asleep, she swung them over the side of the bed, determined to- to get away. She needed time to think, to scrub herself clean from all the unpleasant feelings coursing through her.

She felt Joseph’s eyes on the back of her neck, heavy as the grave.

 

Dutch hadn’t kept shampoo - only the weird, multi-purpose body wash she’d been lathering on herself for the past twenty-six days. But he’d had razors, and something to shave his head with. A mirror.

So maybe she couldn’t control anything about this whole fucked up mess of a situation, she rationalized. Not the time to be spent in this underground mausoleum, or her company; but the minor things? Her appearance? That was something she could take charge of.

The mirror wasn’t well lit enough for Dahlia to study herself like she might have done at home. But she caught the general shape of her jaw, the dark circles under her eyes, the black mass of her wet hair as it stuck to her neck. Her skin had always been a rich olive, turned freckled and tanned in the Montana autumn sun. From what she could see of it now, however, it was ashen. Lifeless, pairing well with the two sunken eyes she could barely make out in the fogged up glass.

To her credit, her hand didn’t shake as she held a fistful of hair at an angle, and took the kitchen scissors to it.

As a child, Dahlia had loved getting a haircut. Her lovely grandma, her yaya, would have her sit on the porch, swallowed by a too-large t-shirt, and carefully brush and trim the stray ends. In all the pictures Dahlia had been given, from old high school yearbooks to the one for the ofrenda, her mother had had shiny chestnut hair, long wavy locks framing a soft, pretty face. Dahlia hadn’t looked much like those pictures, save for the two dark eyes staring back in the fogged up mirror.

She didn’t look much like those pictures of her mother now, either, with uneven wild strands sticking out at odd angles, before she opened the shaving kit. Didn’t look like her own self from before she took on Whitehorse’s job offer for “unbiased reporting of a legitimate federal raid”.

 

Fine. She could be someone new. Could be anyone. Could pretend she’d survived, and that that person who’d fucked it all up wasn’t her. Joseph wouldn’t have any hold on her, and she could build herself back up.


End file.
